The party at Birkenbraes was always large. There were, in the first
place, many people staying in the house, for Mr. Williamson was
hospitable in the largest sense of the word, and opened his liberal
doors to everybody that pleased him, and was ready to provide everything
that might be wanted for the pleasure of his guests--carriages, horses,
boats, even special trains on the railway, not to speak of the
steam-yacht that lay opposite the house, and made constant trips up and
down the loch. His liberality had sometimes an air of ostentation, or
rather of that pleasure which very rich persons often take in the
careless exhibition of a lavish expenditure, which dazzles and
astonishes those to whom close reckonings are necessary. He had a laugh,
which, though perfectly good-natured, seemed to have a certain derision
in it of the precautions which others took, as he gave his orders.
"Lord, man, take a special!--what need to hurry? I will send and order
it to be in waiting. I have my private carriage, ye see, on the
railway--always at the use of my friends." And then he would laugh, as
much as to say, What a simple thing this is--the easiest in the world!
If ye were not all a poor, little, cautious set of people, you would do
the same. Not afford it? Pooh! a bagatelle like that! All this was in
the laugh, which was even more eloquent than _la langue Turque_. There
were sure to be some sensitive people who did not like it; but they were
very hard to please. And the rich man was in fact so truly kind and
willing to make everybody comfortable, that the most sensible even of
the sensitive people forgave him. And as the majority in society is not
sensitive when its own advantage and pleasure is concerned, his house
was always full of visitors, among whom he moved briskly, always
pleased, always endeavouring to elicit the expression of a wish which he
could satisfy. Katie took less trouble. She was less conscious of being
rich. She was willing to share all her own advantages, but it did not
appear to her, as to her father, ridiculous that other people should not
be rich too. The house was always full of visitors staying there, and
there was not a day that there were not neighbours dropping in to lunch
or invited to dinner, keeping up a commotion which delighted Mr.
Williamson and amused Katie, who was to the manner born, and understood
life only in this way. It happened thus that it was into a large party
that Walter, coming with a sense that he was under the dominion of fate,
and was about to settle the whole tenor of his life, plunged unaware. He
heard the sound of many voices before he had got near the great
drawing-room, the door of which stood open, giving vent to the murmur of
talk from about twenty people within. He had scarcely ever gone up so
magnificent a staircase, broad, and light, and bright as became a new
palace, with footmen moving noiselessly upon the thick pile of the
carpets.
"There is a party, I suppose?" he said, hesitating.
"No more than usual, my lord," said the elegant functionary in black,
who was about to announce him, with a bland and soft smile of
superiority and a little pity like his master's for the man who knew no
better, "Two or three gentlemen have dropped in to lunch."
The drawing-room was a large room, with a huge round bow-window giving
upon the loch. It was furnished and decorated in the most approved
manner, with quantities of pretty things of every costly description:
for Katie, like her father, betrayed the constitution and temperament of
wealth, by loving cost almost more than beauty. She was, however, too
well instructed to be led into the mistake of making that luxurious
modern room into the semblance of anything ancient or faded, while Mr.
Williamson was too fond of everything bright and fresh to be persuaded
even by fashion into such an anachronism. There was a faint suspicion in
the mirrors and gilding and all the conveniences and luxuries, of the
style of grandeur peculiar to the saloon of a splendid steamer, to which
the steam-yacht, which was the chief object in the immediate prospect as
seen from the plate-glass window, gave additional likelihood. Walter
for his part was strangely startled, when, out of the seriousness of his
own lonely thoughts, and the sense of having arrived at a great crisis,
he suddenly stepped into the flutter and talk of this large assembly,
which was composed of some half-dozen neighbours on the loch, most of
them young men in more or less attendance upon Katie, mingled with
strangers of all classes whom Mr. Williamson had picked up here and
there. There was a little pause in the hum of voices at his own name,
and a slight stir of interest, various of the guests turning round to
look as he came in. The master of the house advanced with a large hand
held out, and an effusive welcome; but the little lady of Birkenbraes
paid Walter the much greater compliment of pursuing her conversation
undisturbed, without betraying by a movement that she knew he was there.
Katie was not rude. It was not her habit to pay so little attention to a
new-comer: she was profoundly conscious of his entrance, and of every
step he made among the groups distributed about; but as the matter was a
little serious, and his appearance of some importance, she showed a
slight stir of mind and thoughts, which could scarcely be called
agitation, in this way. It was only when her father called loudly,
"Katie, Katie, do you not see Lord Erradeen?" that she turned, not
moving from her place, and suddenly held out her hand with a smile.
"How do you do? I heard you had come," said Katie; and then returned to
her talk. "As for the influence of scenery upon the mind of the common
people, I think it has more influence in the Highlands than anywhere,
but very little when all is said. You don't think much of what you see
every day, unless, indeed, you think everything of it. You must be
totally indifferent, or an enthusiast," said the philosophical young
lady.
Walter meanwhile stood before her, almost awkwardly, feeling the
rigidity upon his countenance of a somewhat unmeaning smile.
"And to which class does Miss Williamson belong?" said her companion,
who was a virtuous young member of parliament, anxious to study national
peculiarities wherever he might happen to be.
"To neither," said Katie, with a slight coldness, just enough to mark
that she did not consider herself as one of the "common people." And she
turned to Walter with equally marked meaning, "Have you seen the
Forresters since you came, Lord Erradeen?"
"I have seen no one," said Walter, slightly startled by the question. "I
came only last night, and am here to-day by your father's
invitation----"
"I know," said Katie, with greater cordiality. "You speak as if I wanted
you to account for yourself. Oh, no! only one must begin the
conversation somehow--unless I plunged you at once into my discussion
with Mr. Braithwaite (Mr. Braithwaite, Lord Erradeen) about the
characteristics of the inhabitants of a mountain country. Do you feel up
to it?" she added, with a laugh.
"But you avoid the question," said the member of parliament. "You say,
'neither.' Now, if it is interesting to know what effect these natural
phenomena have upon the common mind, it is still more interesting when
it is a highly cultivated intelligence which is in question."
"Help me out!" cried Katie, with a glance at Walter. "I have never been
educated--no woman is, you know. How are we to know what the highly
cultured feel! Papa is not cultured at all--he does not pretend to it,
which is why people approve of him; and as for me!" she spread out her
hands like a sort of exclamation. "And Lord Erradeen cannot give you any
information either," she added, demurely, "for he has not known the loch
very long--and I think he does not like it. No, but you shall see one
who can really be of some use this afternoon. Don't you think she is the
very person, Lord Erradeen? Oona--for she has lived on the loch, or
rather in the loch, all her life."
"And when shall I see this--nymph is she, or water goddess?" said the
genial member. "That will indeed be to gather knowledge at the
fountain-head."
"Do you think we may say she is a nymph, Lord Erradeen? Oh yes--what do
you call those classical ladies that take care of the water--Naiads?
Oona is something of that sort. But better than the classics, for she
has water above and water below for a great part of the year. You don't
know how many superstitions we have remaining in this wild part of the
country. We have ghosts, and wandering Jews, and mysterious lights:
Lord Erradeen will tell you----"
Katie paused with the malice bright in her eyes. She did not mean to
affront the recovered attendant who might turn out a suitor, and upon
whom it was possible she might be induced to smile; so she paused with a
little laugh, and allowed Braithwaite to break in.
"Do you call this a wild part of the country, Miss Williamson? Then what
must the cultivated portions look like? I see nothing but beautiful
villas and palaces, and all the luxuries of art."
"The comforts of the Saut Market," said Katie with a shrug of her
shoulders. "It is more easy to carry them about with you than in Bailie
Nicol Jarvie's time. But there is luncheon! Papa is always formal about
our going in, though I tell him that is out of date nowadays. So you
must wait, if you please, Lord Erradeen, and take me." There was then a
pause, until, as they brought up the rear of the procession down-stairs,
Katie said, with the slightest pressure on his arm to call his
attention, "That is a Member of Parliament in search of information and
statistics. If you hear me talk more nonsense than usual you will know
why."
"Do you expect Miss Forrester this afternoon?" asked Walter quite
irrelevant.
Katie's heart gave a little jump. She did not like to be beat. It was
the healthful instinct of emulation, not any tremor of the affections.
She gave him a keen glance half of anger, half of enjoyment, for she
loved a fray.
"Better than that," she cried gaily, "we are going down the loch to see
her. Don't you remember Mrs. Forrester's scones, Lord Erradeen! You are
ungrateful, for I know you have eaten them. But you shall come, too."
If this had been said on the stairs, Walter, probably, would have given
a dignified answer to the effect that his engagements would scarcely
permit--but they were by this time in the dining-room in the little
flutter of taking places which always attends the sitting down of a
party, an operation which Katie, with little rapid indications of her
pleasure, simplified at once; and Walter found himself seated by her
side and engaged in conversation by the enterprising Braithwaite at his
other hand before he could utter any remonstrance. Mr. Braithwaite set
it down in his journal that Lord Erradeen was a dull young fellow,
petted by the women because he was a lord, no other reason being
apparent--and wondered a little at the bad taste of Miss Williamson who
ought to have known better. As for Katie, she exerted herself to smooth
down Walter's slightly ruffled plumes. There was no use, she thought, in
handing him over at once to Oona by thus wounding his _amour propre_.
She inquired into his travels. She asked where he had disappeared when
they all left town.
"I expected we should find you at Auchnasheen for the 12th," she said.
"You are the only man I know who is philosopher enough not to care for
the grouse. One is driven to believe about that time of the year that
men can think of nothing else."
"Perhaps, Katie," said young Tom of Ellermore, "if you were to speak to
Lord Erradeen, whom we don't know as yet, as we have never had the
chance of calling" (here the young men exchanged bows, accompanied by a
murmur from Katie, "Mr. Tom Campbell, Ellermore," while the colour rose
in young Tom's cheek), "perhaps he would be charitable to us others that
are not philosophers."
"Have ye not enough grouse of your own, Tom Campbell?" cried Mr.
Williamson, who, in a pause of the conversation, had heard this address.
"Man! if I were you I would think shame to look a bird in the face."
"And why?" cried the young fellow; "that was what they were made for. Do
you think otherwise that they would be allowed to breed like _that_, and
eat up everything that grows?"
"Heather," said the head of the house, "and bracken. Profitable crops,
my word!"
Here Walter interrupted the discussion by a polite speech to young Tom,
whose eyes blazed with pleasure and excitement at the offer made him.
"But I hope," he said, "you will join us yourself. It will be like
stealing a pleasure to have such an enjoyment, and the master of it not
there."
"I have other work in hand," Walter said; at which young Tom stared and
coloured still more, and a slight movement showed itself along the
table, which Mr. Braithwaite, the knowledge-seeker, being newly arrived,
did not understand. Tom cried hastily, "I beg your pardon," and many
eyes were turned with sudden interest upon Lord Erradeen. But this was
what Walter had anticipated as little as the parliamentary inquirer. He
grew so red that Tom Campbell's healthy blush was thrown into the shade.
"I ought rather to say," he added hastily, "that my time here is too
short for amusement."
There was an uneasy little pause, and then everybody burst into talk.
Both the silence and the conversation were significant. Lord Erradeen
turned to Katie with an instinctive desire for sympathy, but Katie was
occupied, or pretended to be so, with her luncheon. It was not here that
sympathy on that point was to be found.
"I wonder," said Katie, somewhat coldly, "that you do not remain longer
when you are here. Auchnasheen is very nice, and you ought to know your
neighbours, don't you think, Lord Erradeen? If it is merely business, or
duty, that brings you----"
"I wish I knew which it was," he said in a low tone.
Katie turned and looked at him with those eyes of common-sense in which
there is always a certain cynicism.
"I did not think in this century," she said, "that it was possible for
any man not to know why he was doing a thing; but you perhaps like to
think that an old family has rules of its own, and ought to keep up the
past."
"I should think," said Mr. Braithwaite, not discouraged by the lower
tone of this conversation, "that the past must have a very strong hold
upon any one who can suppose himself a Highland chieftain."
"A Highland chief!" cried Katie, opening her brown eyes wide: and then
she laughed, which was a thing strangely offensive to Walter, though he
could scarcely have told why.
"I fear," he said coldly, "that though I am to some extent a Highland
laird, I have no pretension to be a chief. There is no clan Methven that
I ever heard of: though indeed I am myself almost a stranger and of no
authority."
"Mrs. Forrester will tell you, Mr. Braithwaite," said Katie. "She is a
sort of queen of the loch. She is one of the old Macnabs who once were
sovereign here. These people," she said, waving her hand towards the
various scions of the great clan Campbell, "are mushrooms in comparison:
which is a comfort to our feelings, seeing that we sink into
insignificance as creatures of to-day before them. The very original
people for highly consolatory to the upstarts, for we are just much the
same as the middling-old people to them. They are worlds above us all."
Here Tom of Ellermore leant over his immediate neighbours and reminded
Katie that the days were short in October, and that it was a stiff row
to the isle: and the conversation terminated in the hurried retirement
of the ladies, and selection of rugs and wrappers to make them
comfortable. Mr. Williamson had, as he said, "more sense," than to set
out upon any such ridiculous expedition. He stood and watched the
preparations, with his thumbs stuck into the arm-holes of his waistcoat.
"Ye had much better take the yacht," he said. "She could get up steam in
half an hour, and take you there in ten minutes, and there is plenty of
room for ye all, and the cabin in case of rain. But as ye like! A wilful
man will have his way. If ye would rather work yourselves than have the
work done for ye--and a shower in prospect! But it's your own affair."
The party, however, preferred the boats, and Katie put her father's
remonstrance aside with a wave of her hand.
"It is all these boys are ever good for," she said, "and why would you
stop them? Besides, it is far nicer than your mechanical steam, and tea
on board, and all the rest of it. Lord Erradeen, you are to steer. If
you don't know the currents I can tell you. Here is your place beside
me: and you can tell me what you have been doing all this time, for
there were so many interruptions at lunch I got no good of you," the
young lady said.
Thus Walter was swept along in Katie's train. As he was quite unaware of
any understanding between the girls he was of course ignorant that any
special significance could attach to his arrival in this manner at the
isle. And for his own part he was pleased by the thought of seeing Oona
for the first time in an accidental way, without any responsibility, so
to speak, of his own. It was a little chilly for a water-party, but on
the lochs people are prepared for that and it interferes with no one's
pleasure. The afternoon was full of sunshine, and every bit of broken
bank, and every island and feathery crest of fir-trees, was reflected
and beautified in the still water, that broke with a ripple the
fantastic doubling of every substance, but lent a glory to the colour
and brilliancy to every outline. The gay party swept along over
reflected woods, themselves all brilliant in reflection, and making the
loch as gay as a Venetian canal. On the little landing-place at the isle
the whole small population was collected to meet them: Mrs. Forrester in
her white cap, shivering slightly, and glad to draw round her the fur
cloak which Mysie was putting on her shoulders from behind, "for the sun
has not the strength it once had," she explained, "now that we are just
getting round the corner of the year:" Hamish always in his red shirt,
kneeling on the little wooden landing which he had wheeled out to
receive the party, in order to catch the prow of the first boat; and
Oona, a little apart, standing looking out, with a faint thrill of
excitement about her, consequent on having just heard the news of
Walter's arrival, but no expectation to make this excitement tangible.
They made a pretty show upon the little beach, reflected, too, in the
clear depths below--the bit of ribbon on the mother's cap, the knot of
pale roses on Oona's breast, culminating in Mysie's stronger tints on
one side, and the red of Hamish's garment on the other.
"What a pretty picture it would make," Katie said. "'Hospitality,' you
ought to call it, or 'Welcome to the isle.' But there ought to be a
gentleman to make it perfect; either an old gentleman to represent
Oona's father, or a young one for her husband. Don't you think so, Lord
Erradeen?"
It was perhaps at this moment when he was listening with a somewhat
distracted look, smiling against the grain, and standing up in the boat
to steer, that Oona saw him first. It cannot be denied that the shock
was great. In her surprise she had almost made a false step on the
slippery shingle, and Mrs. Forrester grasped her dress with an "Oona!
you'll be in the water if you don't take more care." Oona recovered
herself with a blush, which she would have given anything in the world
to banish from her countenance. It was so then! This man, who had, all
unawares, produced so much effect upon her life and thoughts, was coming
back within her little circle of existence in Katie Williamson's train!
She smiled to herself a moment after, holding her head high, and with a
sense of ridicule pervading the being which had been momentarily
transfixed by that keen arrow of surprise and pain. She said to herself
that the humour of it was more than any one could have believed, but
that all was well. Oh, more than well!--for was not this the thing of
all others that was good for her, that would put the matter on the
easiest footing?
All this flew through her mind like lightning while the boat came close,
amid the friendly shouts and greetings of the crew, all of them
"neighbours' sons." Mr. Braithwaite, the English observer, sat by
admiring while these brotherly salutations were gone through. Perhaps he
did not note in his diary that the young aborigines called each other by
their Christian names, but he did make a remark to that effect in his
mind. And then there ensued the little tumult of disembarking, in the
midst of which Oona, holding out her hand, frankly greeted Lord
Erradeen. "We heard you had come back," she said, giving him a look of
full and confident composure which puzzled Walter. She meant him, and
not him only, to perceive the frankness of a reception in which there
was not a shade of embarrassment, no recollection of the strange moment
they had spent together, or of the encounter that had taken place upon
the isle. When one pair of eyes look into another with that momentary
demonstration it is a proof of some meaning more than meets the eye. And
Walter, whose own eyes were full too of a something, subdued and
concealed so far as possible--a deprecating wistful look in which there
was pardon sought (though he had consciously done her no wrong; but in
doing wrong at all had he not offended Oona as Dante offended Beatrice,
although she might never know of what sins he had been guilty?) and
homage offered--was still more perplexed by that open gaze in which
there was nothing of the softness of the look with which Oona had
watched him going away, and which had so often recurred to his mind
since. What did it mean? It gave him welcome, but a welcome that felt
like the closing of a door. He was far too much occupied with
investigating this problem to remark the corresponding look, the slight,
almost imperceptible smile, that passed between Oona and Katie as they
met. In the midst of all the cheerful din, the merry voices on the air,
the boats run up upon the beach, the cheerful movement towards the
house, such fine shades of feeling and dramatic purpose can make
themselves apparent to those who are in the secret, but to no other. A
merrier party never ascended the slope, and that is saying much. Mrs.
Forrester led the way in the highest satisfaction.
"Mysie, ye will stand on no ceremony about following," she said, "but
run on before and see that the tea is masked: but not too much, to get
that boiled taste. It is perhaps extravagant, but I like to have just
what you may call the first flavour of the tea. And let the scones be
just ready to bring ben, for Miss Williamson must not be kept too late
on the water at this time of the year. To tell the truth," she said,
turning with her smiles to the member of parliament, a functionary for
whom she had a great respect, counting him more important than a young
lord, who after all was in the position of a "neighbour's son"; "to tell
the truth, I have just to be inhospitable at this season and push them
away with my own hands: for it is always fresh upon the loch, and a
score of young creatures with colds, all because I let them stay half an
hour too late, would be a dreadful reflection. This will be your first
visit to the loch? Oh, I am sure we are delighted to see you, both Oona
and me. We are always pleased to meet with strangers that have an
appreciation. Some people would think it was a very lonely life upon the
isle; but I assure you if I could give you a list of all the people that
come here! It would be rather a good thing to keep a list now that I
think of it, you would see some names that would be a pleasure to any
one to see. Yes, I think I must just set up a visiting-book, as if we
were living in some grand place in London, say Grosvenor Square. What
are you saying, Katie, my dear? Oh yes, I have shaken hands with Lord
Erradeen. I am very glad to see him back, and I hope he will stay longer
and let us see more of him than last year. This is one of our finest
views. I always stop here to point it out to strangers," she added,
pausing, for indeed it was her favourite spot to take breath.
And then the group gathered at the turning, and looked out upon Kinloch
Houran, lying in shadow, in the dimness of one of those quick-flying
clouds which give so much charm to a Highland landscape. The old grey
ruin lying upon the dulled surface, steel blue and cold, of the water,
which round the island was dancing in sunshine, gave a curious
effectiveness to the landscape.
"It is the ghost-castle." "It is the haunted house," said one of the
visitors, in a whisper, who would have spoken loud enough but for the
presence of Walter, who stood and looked, with great gravity, upon his
place of trial. When Katie's voice became audible at his side, advising
him in very distinct tones to restore the old place, Walter felt himself
shrink and grow red, as if some villany had been suggested to him. He
made no reply. He had thought himself of something of the same
description in his first acquaintance with Kinloch Houran; but how
different his feelings were now!
The reader already knows what were Mrs. Forrester's teas. The party
filled the pleasant drawing-room in which a fire was burning brightly,
notwithstanding the sunshine without, and the scones arrived in
bountiful quantity, one supply after another; Mysie's countenance
beaming as "a few more" were demanded; while her mistress did nothing
but fill out cups of tea and press her young guests to eat.
"Another cup will not hurt you," she said. "That is just nonsense about
nerves. If it was green tea, indeed, and you were indulging in it at
night to keep you off your sleep--but in a fine afternoon like this, and
after your row. Now just try one of these scones; you have not tasted
this kind. It is hot from the griddle, and we all think my cook has a
gift. Mysie, tell Margaret that we will have a few more. And, Oona, it
is the cream scones that Katie likes: but you must tell Lord Erradeen to
try this kind, just to please me."
Thus the kind lady ran on. It gave her the profoundest pleasure to see
her house filled, and to serve her young guests with these simple
delicacies. "Dear me, it is just nothing. I wish it was better worth
taking," she answered to Mr. Braithwaite's compliments, who made the
usual pretty speeches of the English tourist as to Scotch hospitality.
Mrs. Forrester felt as if these compliments were a half-reproach to her
for so simple an entertainment. "You see," she said, "it is all we can
do; for, besides that there is no gentleman in the house, which is
against dinner-giving, we are not well situated in the isle for evening
visits. The nights are cold at this time of the year, and it is not
always easy to strike our bit little landing in the dark; so we have to
content ourselves with a poor offering to our friends. And I am sure you
are very kind to take it so politely. If my boys were at home, I would
have it more in my power to show attention; but if you are going further
north, I hope you will make your way to Eaglescairn and see my son, who
will be delighted to show you the country about him," Mrs. Forrester
said. The English M.P. could not but think that it was his reputation
which had travelled before him, and gained him so delightful a
reception.
As for the rest of the party, they were fully entertained by Oona, who
was more than usually lively and bright. She said very little to Lord
Erradeen, who was by far the most silent of the assembly, but exerted
herself for her other guests, with a little flush upon her which was
very becoming, and an excitement completely concealed and kept under,
which yet acted upon her like a sort of ethereal stimulant quickening
all her powers. They were so gay that Mrs. Forrester's anxiety about
their return, which indeed she forgot as soon as they were under her
roof, was baffled, and it was not till the glow of the sunset was
beginning to die out in the west that the visitors began to move. Then
there was a hurrying and trooping out, one group following another, to
get to the boats. The landscape had changed since they came, and now the
upper end of the loch was all cold and chill in the greyness of early
twilight, though the sky behind in the southward was still glowing with
colour. Benlui lay in a soft mist having put off his purple and gold,
and drawn about him the ethereal violet tones of his evening mantle; but
on the slopes beneath, as they fell towards the margin of the water, all
colour had died out. Lord Erradeen was one of the last to leave the
house, and he was at first but vaguely aware of the little movement and
sudden pause of the party upon the first turn of the winding path. He
did not even understand for a moment the eager whisper which came almost
more distinctly than a shout through the clear still evening air. It was
the voice of young Tom of Ellermore.
"Look there! the light--the light! Who says they do not believe in it?"
the young fellow said; and then there was a flutter of exclamations and
subdued cries of wonder and interest, not without dissentient voices.
"I see some sort of a glimmer," said one.
"It is as clear as day," cried another.
"It must be reflection," a third said.
Walter raised his eyes; he had no sort of doubt to what they referred.
His old house lay dark upon the edge of the dark gleaming loch, silent,
deserted, not a sign of life about the ruined walls; but upon the tower
shone the phantasm of the light, now waning, now rising, as if some
unfelt wind blew about the soft light of an unseen lamp. It brought him
to himself in a moment, and woke him up from the maze of vague thoughts
which had abstracted him even in the midst of the gay movement and
bustle. He listened with strange spectatorship, half-stern, half-amused,
to all the murmurs of the little crowd.
"If you call that light!" said the voice of Katie; "it is some
phosphorescence that nobody has examined into, I suppose. Who knows
what decayed things are there? That sort of glimmer always comes of
decay. Oh, yes, I once went to chemistry lectures, and I know. Besides,
it stands to reason. What could it be else?"
"You know very well, Katie, what they say--that it is the summons of the
warlock lord."
"I would like to answer the summons," cried Katie, with a laugh. "I
would send for the health inspector, from Glasgow, and clear it all out,
every old crevice, and all the perilous stuff. That would be the thing
to do. As for the warlock lord, papa shall invite him to dinner if you
will find out where he is to be met with, Tom."
"Like the commandant in _Don Giovanni_," somebody said; and there was an
echoing laugh, but of a feeble kind.
Walter heard this conversation with a sort of forlorn amusement. He was
not excited; his blood was rather congealed than quickened in his veins.
But he lingered behind, taking no notice of his late companions as they
streamed away to the boats. He seemed in a moment to have been parted
miles--nay, worlds away from them. When he thought of the interview that
was before him, and of the light-hearted strangers making comments upon
the legend of the place with laugh and jest, it seemed to him that he
and they could scarcely belong to the same race. He lingered, with no
heart for the farewells and explanations that would be necessary if he
left them formally: and turning round gazed steadfastly towards Kinloch
Houran from behind the shade of the shrubbery. Here Oona found him, as
she rushed back to warn him that the boats were pushing off. She began
breathlessly--
"Lord Erradeen, you are called--" then stopped, looked at him, and said
no more.
He did not answer her for a moment, but stood still, and listened to the
sounds below, the impatient call, the plash of the oars in the water,
the grating of the keel of the last boat as it was pushed off. Then he
looked at Oona, with a smile.
"I am called--?" he said, "but not that way. Now I must go home."
Her heart beat so that she could scarcely speak. Was this spell to take
possession of her again, against her will, without any wish of his, like
some enchantment? She fought against it with all her might.
"If that is so," she said, "Hamish will put you across, when you
please."
He took no notice of these indifferent words.
"This time," he said, "it is altogether different. I know what is going
to happen, and I am not afraid. But it must come to an end."
What was it to her if it came to an end or not? She tried to check the
quick-rising sympathy, to offer no response.
"They will be late on the water, but I hope they will get home before
dark," she replied.
Then he looked at her wistfully, with a look that melted her very heart.
"Don't you know that it will never come to an end unless you stand by
me?" he cried.